SEPTEMBER 21 • 2023 | 55
ARTS&LIFE
POETRY
A
aron Dworkin,
professor of Arts
Leadership and
Entrepreneurship in the
School of Music, Theatre &
Dance at the University of
Michigan, takes pride in his
many years of association
with the Ann Arbor
Symphony Orchestra.
His award-winning
career was launched as
a violinist founding the
Sphinx Organization in
Detroit, which promotes the
professional experiences of
young artists. He has brought
that work together with the
Ann Arbor orchestra in
a career that includes the
writing of nonfiction and
poetry books.
One book of poems, The
Poetjournalist (Lenox Avenue
Press), released just months
ago, picks up on the title
he has given himself while
assuming the responsibilities
of a word artist.
Dworkin, a MacArthur
Fellow associated with the
National Council on the
Arts, has been asked to write
and present a poem for this
year’s opening concert of
the symphony. It will be
presented at 8 p.m. Saturday,
Sept. 23, in Ann Arbor’s
Hill Auditorium, where the
musicians will play music by
Joan Tower, Erich Wolfgang
Korngold and Antonin
Dvorák. Earl Lee is music
director.
“They had wanted me to
write a poem that captures
this role that the symphony
has in the community,”
Dworkin explained. “I
followed along the lines of
the slogan of the Ann Arbor
Symphony, which is ‘Hear
Here.’”
Dworkin, in giving a sense
of the poem, excerpted two
lines: “Hear each note, a
raindrop in an endless storm
of rhythm.” “Here in Ann
Arbor, music is not merely
heard. It is lived, tasted, felt
in the pulse and sway of
place.”
“I keep a regular refrain
in every stanza of the poem
that reflects either ‘hear’
or ‘here,’” said Dworkin,
poet-in-residence for many
organizations, including
the Max M. and Marjorie
S. Fisher Foundation,
Wright Museum of
African American History,
Complexions Contemporary
Ballet and Grantmakers in
the Arts.
Dworkin has appeared
before audiences at Carnegie
Hall, Harvard University and
Minneapolis Orchestra Hall
among many other venues.
“I’m regularly developing,
authoring and creating
poems that reflect my
poetjournalist approach,”
he said. “Most recently, a
poem I performed was at the
Winfield House in London.
“The American
ambassador to the United
Kingdom asked me to write
a poem about the connection
between the United States
and Britain. I drafted that
poem and shared that at an
event at the Winfield House,
the official residence of
Aaron Dworkin will help launch the new season
of the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra.
A Poetjournalist
SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Aaron
Dworkin
continued on page 57